Posts Tagged ‘Benny Begin’

Coalition Chairman David Bitan (Likud) on Tuesday afternoon suspended MK Benny Begin from the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice after the latter had voted against the government-sanction Regulation Act which compels Arab claimants against Jews in Judea and Samaria to accept market value for their land.

Begin’s suspension for three weeks for defying coalition discipline was approved by Minister of Jerusalem Affairs and of Environmental Protection Ze’ev Elkin (Likud). “I used to frequently see such moves when I was coalition chairman,” Elking told Army Radio. “It’s well-known that when a coalition MK votes against the government line he knows he’s going to pay a price. This goes for every coalition MK.”

“In this instance Benny chose to vote the way he did and I’m sorry about it. I think he is wrong on the issue, but the coalition chairman’s response was unavoidable.”

MK Tzipi Livni (Zionist Camp) responded to Begin’s suspension saying, “The fact that they’re suspending Benny Begin says everything about today’s Likud. Netanyahu used Begin’s reputation as an honest man for his election, now he steps on this reputation and on the truth with is decision.”

Incidentally, rumor has it that MK Livni is preparing to jump ship from the Zionist Camp to her fifth party, Yesh Atid. Livni’s chances to win a realistic spot in the ZC primaries are not high, according to surveys.

Opposition leader MK Isaac Herzog tore up the proposed law at the Knesset podium, thus following in the footsteps of his exulted grandfather, Israel’s Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Isaac Herzog, in 1939 tore up the British White Book that imposed severe limitations on Jewish immigration to Palestine and on land purchase there by Jews. The MK’s father, UN Envoy Haim Herzog, in 1975 tore up the “Zionism is Racism” assembly resolution.

Their scion tore up a bill seeking to keep Jewish families on their land.

The news that MK Avigdor Liberman, chairman of the right-wing Yisrael Beiteynu party, will be Israel’s next defense minister has rocked the political establishment on the right and left.

Liberman, a tough-talking former ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has sought the Defense Ministry portfolio for years – and appears set to receive it after a deal struck with Netanyahu on Wednesday.

Liberman’s rise followed a tumultuous day of negotiations and backroom deals in which both Liberman and MK Isaac Herzog, chairman of the historically left-wing Labor party, vied for the job of defense minister and the chance to enter Netanyahu’s government.

“I regret the prime minister’s decision. I did not imagine that he would make such a paradoxical and dangerous move,” said MK Benny Begin, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, in an interview with Israel’s Army Radio on Thursday morning. “The prime minister has been very proud of what he called ‘a reasonable, balanced and responsible’ defense policy, while Liberman’s statements give an opposite impression.”

Netanyahu received harsh criticism from opposition parties as well, including Yesh Atid MK Ofer Shelah, who blasted Netanyahu for “bartering the most sensitive and important positions as if nothing mattered” in a Facebook post on Thursday.

Liberman was an ally of Netanyahu – the two ran together in a united party during the 2013 election after which Liberman became foreign minister – until they had a public falling out two years ago. The Yisrael Beiteynu party remained in the opposition after last year’s election, and as recently as March Liberman castigated Netanyahu as a “liar, cheat, and con man.”

Liberman has been a frequent advocate for a harsher military response toward Palestinian Authority terrorism, notably against the Hamas terror group that runs Gaza.

“The elimination of Hamas is the primary mission of the Israeli government and as defense minister I will carry it out,” Liberman said before last year’s elections. “We will not reach agreements and understandings with them. The only agreement that can be reached with Hamas is when they are buried in the ground,” he said, adding that such an Israeli policy cannot be implemented when the government is comprised of “a coalition of nerds.”

Meanwhile, reports have emerged that Tony Blair, the Quartet’s envoy to the Middle East and a former British prime minister, colluded with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi to push Herzog into the government – a move reportedly designed to facilitate a peace deal with the Palestinian Authority. According to the report in the Israeli daily Haaretz, Blair even met with Herzog’s political partner, MK Tzipi Livni, in her Tel Aviv home this week, despite the fact that she is sitting shiva – the Jewish mourning ritual – for her brother.

Liberman is set to replace current Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, a senior Likud member who has recently clashed with Netanyahu over a series of issues related to the IDF’s independence from the political establishment.

Ya’alon, apparently alluding to the news of his ouster, said on Thursday that Israel is facing a crisis of leadership. “There is a loss of our moral compass on basic issues,” Ya’alon said. “If I had to give a golden tip, it would be to navigate with a compass rather than a weather vane. Navigation with a compass is tried and true, and it’s also a question of leadership.”

The International Leadership Summit, created by a Croation free market advocate and an Indian-American business, communications and humanitarian leader, in partnership with several other leading economic and civilizational-based think tanks and organizations, is holding its first Jerusalem Leaders Summit in Jerusalem this week.

Why Jerusalem? Because this core collective of thinkers seek to jointly find solutions to the ravaging ills afflicting nations the world over through the shared communal values born of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

“And,” as Joel Anand Samy, co-founder of ILS explained to the JewishPress.com, “How better to show our support for the foundation of the Judeo-Christian ethic than to come together in Jerusalem, through this terrible wave of terror?”

The views of the co-founders of the International Leadership Summit were formed by the close range observation of the dramatic fall of the Berlin Wall. When the wall fell it signaled the end of the dreaded dark days of Communism. What it was replaced by, however, was virtually unlimited corruption and government malfeasance.

Srdac, born in Croatia, was studying in Germany, and Anand Samy was in China, developing a human rights initiative through a U.S. company, when the Berlin Wall fell.

Srdac watched as her native Croatia was devoured by corruption, instead of entering into a new phase of political and economic freedom.

What went wrong? As both Srodac and Anand Samy realized, Croatia and the other nations created by the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the U.S.S.R were lacking three critical elements for nation building and freedom: the protection of property rights, the rule of law, and independent judiciaries.

Srdoc and Anand Samy are frontline fighters in the international effort to slash terrorism funding, promote economic reforms and fight corruption. Anand Samy, in particular, has also been focused on promoting America’s partnerships with her allies.

The two, through the International Leaders Summit, and their partnership with the Heritage Foundation, the Alliance for Direct Democracy in Europe, and the Family Research Council, realized the time had come to host a gathering in Israel of like-minded leaders from across the U.S. and Europe.

This summit is an “opportunity to affirm our common civilizational foundations in the rule of law and the principles of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” Anand Samy said. At the same time, it is a “good opportunity to promote America’s partnership with Israel.”

Srdoc explained that the inclusion of representatives from six European parliaments gives everyone the opportunity to address the common problems such as the rise of radical Islam, the unmitigated explosion of widespread corruption, arms, weapons, drugs and human smuggling – “all these problems which should have been addressed, but because they were not, have led us to the current global crises.”

Natasha Srdoc, co-founder of the International Leadeship Summit

“The rule of law is essential so that nations can control their borders, and stop the flow of arms, drugs and human exploitation.”

Srdoc’s partner, Anand Samy responds: “this Israel Leaders Summit gives us the opportunity to highlight the shared issues and challenges, while promoting the positive side of our common civilizational foundation.”

Joel Anand Samy, co-founder of the International Leadership Summit

“Highlighting Israel’s technological advancements, its innovations in every sector, its desalination discoveries and exporting of that technology gives us the opportunity to reframe the discussion and to develop the important linkages to further strengthen ties between Israel and the other participating nations,” Anand Samy concluded.

The Summit is being held at the Inbal Hotel in Jerusalem, starting Monday and continuing through Wednesday, Nov. 4th.

There has been a significant shift regarding the plan for a massive giveaway of state land to Bedouin residents of the Negev.

At stake is land totaling hundreds of thousands of acres all over the Negev, claimed by Bedouin squatters. In the 1970s, the Bedouin were allowed to register ownership claims over these parcels with the Justice Ministry, but the state never recognized these claims, because they were not backed by legal proof of ownership. Moreover, every time the Bedouin tried to take the state to court to secure their legal ownership over the land, they lost and their lands were registered as property of the state.

In January, Minister without portfolio Benny Begin, serving in a caretaker government, proposed a land reform for the Bedouin population that was going to transform the Negev. Ignoring previous court decisions, the Begin plan was going to sanction the Bedouin squatter tenants, all of them illegal, as the legal owners of much of the Negev.

Begin and the Likud-Beitenu were so committed to this move, that they forced Jewish Home to approve, in the coalition agreement, item 51 which reads: Both sides will promote the “Law regulating Bedouin settlement, 5772-2012,” should a Jewish Home minister be a member of a ministerial committee to implement said law.

According to Maariv, on Wednesday evening there was a meeting on the Negev lands between Ministers Meir Cohen (Yesh Atid) and Uri Ariel (Jewish Home), both appointed by their parties to engage on the issue. The Jewish Home MKs Ayelet Shaked, Zevulun Kalfa and Orit Struck were also pushing a halt to the Begin plan, as were Minister Yair Shamir and MK David Rotem both from Israel Beiteinu, along with coalition chairman Mk Yariv Levin of the Likud.

In the end, according to Maariv this morning, Jewish Home and Yesh Atid, together with most of the coalition partners, reached an agreement to introduce significant changes to the Begin plan, after it had already been approved by the transitional government after the election.

The change, essentially, eliminates the Begin plan in favor of the original 2011 plan, which was approved a much less generous land giveaway to the Negev Bedouin.

According to a source in Jewish Home, the reason the government decided in January to prefer the Begin plan over the 2011 plan was that the Bedouin didn’t like the 2011 plan. Well, you can’t blame them for that, but being unhappy still does not entitle them to a land that isn’t legally theirs.

The plan will be executed over a period of five years, and the Negev Bedouin will have nine months to decide whether they accept it or prefer to sue the government over the plan. Mind you, based on past experience, suing could mean the Bedouin would be left with next to nothing, instead of what is still a legal sanctioning of their ownership of areas where they actually reside.

Israel’s government on Sunday approved the recommendations of Minister without portfolio Benny Begin to change the program regulating Bedouin settlements in the Negev. The reform is aimed at solving definitively the issue of Bedouin ownership claims on Negev lands, including a compromise proposal of relocation and financial compensation, bringing an end to illegal Bedouin outposts.

In September 2011 the government approved the Praver Report, which determined a layout for regulating Bedouin settlement in the Negev, facilitating expansion of existing settlements and absorption of some communities within Regional Council Abu-Basma, south and west of the “green line.”

Additional settlements will be established as part of the regional master plan for Beer-Sheva.

According to the plan, each settlement will be adjusted to the nature and character of the local population and its needs, and will be executed in cooperation with it.

The plan was accepted with mixed feelings among the Bedouin as well as among right wing critics.

Kalman Libeskind wrote in Ma’ariv about Benny Begin’s “stinking maneuver,” accusing him and Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein of not just confirming through legal registration what has been essentially an illegal land grab of many thousands of acres by the Bedouins over several decades, but also promising them many new settlements to boot.

Libeskind pointed out that while the Weinstein refused to permit the application of the Levy Committee recommendations to apply Israeli law in Judea and Samaria because the government is in a lame duck period – has no duck issue when it comes to giving away enormous swaths of Jewish land to the Bedouins.

The Regavim movement on Friday petitioned the High Court to forbid the government from approving the proposed program at its meeting on Sunday, arguing that Minister Benny Begin will not serve in the next Knesset and so his proposal is a serious case of a last minute grab that should not be sanctioned.